


The Fruit of Patience

by riventhorn



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pseudo Incest, Thor: The Dark World, Thor: The Dark World Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 01:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1038615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor 2 spoilers.</p>
<p>Loki lies in the dust on Svartalfheim, remembering the moments after Thor released him from his cell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fruit of Patience

The black dust of Svartalfheim settled onto his mouth and eyelids, irritating the sensitive skin. It was an inconvenient reminder of the life that still throbbed in his veins, a fact that he very much wished to keep hidden at the moment. 

Loki fought against the urge to brush the dust away and instead wove another layer of illusion over his skin, heightening its pallor and turning it icy cold, hiding the beat of his heart.

His brother continued to sob against his chest. 

Gratifying as this was—he would have been deeply insulted had Thor shed no tears over his supposed demise—he hoped that Thor would not spend _too_ long blubbering and weeping. He was drained from the fighting and knew that he would need to expend more magic to bring his plan to its fruition. 

At last, Thor relinquished his body, carefully lowering his limp form to the ground. He felt Thor’s rough hand against his cheek. 

“You avenged her death,” Thor said, his voice hoarse with sorrow. “And now I will avenge yours. You should be carried back to Asgard with honor, but time does not permit me this last duty.” His words wavered, and he spoke more softly, almost beyond Loki’s hearing. “I will not be whole without you, brother.” He sighed, and Loki sensed that he had stood. “I…imagined that we had forever. How can it be that you are gone?”

Loki listened as Thor’s reluctant steps receded into the distance. He had no doubt that his brother and the mortal woman would find a way off Svartalfheim. He had no doubt that Thor would triumph over the Dark Elves. He was, in fact, counting on it. Thor was a hero, after all, and that was what heroes did. 

He was not a hero. But he was going to be a king. At last—after years of thwarted ambitions and humiliations—the throne would be his. 

A misstep could still lead to his ruin, though, and so Loki lay still, waiting for the Asgardian whom Odin would be sure to send after his wayward son. His thoughts wandered—as they were wont to do—back to his brother. He recalled his disbelief in the moment when Thor declared his intention to free him. He had stumbled from his cell, mind whirling with the possibilities, barefoot and ill dressed, the pain of Frigga’s death still an ache in his throat. 

_“Come,” Thor said, suddenly gentle, putting his hands on Loki’s arms. “You cannot go into battle without your armor.”_

_“How fine of you to show such concern!” Loki spat and tightened his fingers around Thor’s. “Only now do you care for my welfare when in all the months I have been trapped here you did not come to me once.” His brother did not wince, even as Loki’s nails bit into his skin._

_“What purpose would it have served if I had?” Thor brought a wary hand to Loki’s hair, touching the matted, dark strands. “To stare at you in this cage? That is not how I wished to see you or remember you.”_

_“And how did you then? How did you remember me? Or was I forgotten—”_

_Thor bent and kissed him, cutting off his words._

_“Like this,” he murmured when he broke away at last. “I remembered the times—few enough to count on one hand—that I found you tender and sweet. The nights we lay together and the mornings when I woke and you had already gone.”_

_In that moment, Loki’s plans settled into place. Thor had claimed not to trust him, and perhaps he did not. But he still loved him, and that would be more than enough._

Returning to the present cold darkness on Svartalfheim, Loki clung to the memory of Thor’s warmth and brightness. It had always comforted him in his blackest moments—comforted and enraged him in equal measure. 

He remembered those times, too. He remembered the thrill of having all of Thor’s strength pliant under his hands, of bringing his brother pleasure, of having all of Thor’s attention and exuberance directed at him. 

He did not begrudge Thor his dalliance with the mortal. The white hot stab of lightning and growling thunder of a storm would lose their wild beauty should they be tamed and confined. What were the few decades Thor might spend with her compared to the millennia that he would be with Loki? 

Besides, without her, ensuring Thor remained away from Asgard and the throne until Loki had matters well in hand might prove…problematic. 

No, let him have his sport on Midgard. Loki would wait. Had he not been patient thus far? Oh yes, very, very patient. He had read something in one of those books that his mother had given him—a tedious tome from Midgard, but the phrase had still struck him as apt:

_Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet._

He expected the fruit to be very sweet indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> Quote about patience by Jean Jacques Rousseau


End file.
